[Firestormalpha]

On a marginally related note, I've been using my dad's old-old averatec laptop (Averatec 2200 series, XP Home edition, HDD reads as 69.5GB, I'm assuming it's 80GB with 10 taken up by the OS, RAM is supposed to be either 512MB or 1GB) to look things up when I'm not sitting at my computer. It's riddled with issues. If I try to right click on the desktop or in any of the computer folders I get some kind of validation error, explorer shuts down and I have to do a manual reboot to get things running again. I installed ad-aware some time ago and at some point it detected some trojans, say about 4 of them. says it removed them and that I should reboot to make sure they're gone. Reboot and scan again, only to find they never really left.

The laptop came with some kind of subscription required system restore software called Phoenix or something like that. My dad never bothered to subscribe and the system didn't come with an option that I could find to create a restore disk.

What I want to know, is there anyway to totally wipe the system and re-install the whole thing, OS and all that? Like say, if I bought an XP OS disc (if I can find one) and ran it in the laptop would that work? If it even got things going that far, would I be missing some kind of proprietary files to run things like the touch pad, optical drive, or screen?

Mostly I'm just curious if I can squeak out a bit more life from the old thing. As it is, since I can right click on anything, I haven't a clue how much ram I'm working with or the processor speed.

Additional info that may or may not be pertinant:
Some time ago the powersupply went screwy and the AC adaptor manage to fuse itself to the socket (don't ask me how) couldn't be removed and it wouldn't function anymore. My brother's father-in-law works in the IT field. He did some work on it, replaced the socket, battery no longer functions, but the machine will run just fine (power wise) so long as it remains plugged in.